Lung-fishes & Bichirs

Abstract

The bony fishes treated in this chapter are characterised by the possession of a lung-like respiratory organ. They comprise the dipnoans, or lung-fishes, the coelacanth and the bichirs. Related to the coelacanths were the Rhipidistia, the only fishes to have true internal nostrils, and an internal fin skeleton very similar to that of the limb of a tetrapod. They were common in the Devonian and persisted into the Carboniferous, and gave rise to the land vertebrates.